Hi there! Nathan here. Taking over the devlog from Adam as he’s exploring new worlds for the time being (Elden Ring!). Time flies and we’re already at the fifth developer update for Astral Flux. We have been busy polishing world 2, preparing new game mechanics, and exploring a mysterious new world...

Icing On The Cake

Remember we were working on the ice world boss concepts shown in Devlog #3? The boss is finished (save for some tweaking and balancing). Our goal with this new boss was to ramp up the difficulty from the boss of the first world. It has three phases that are quite different and require you to figure out what his pattern is going to be. I had a floating skull with creepy tentacles in mind to match the freezing barren ice world.

The initial concept was not alien enough, so I made it more alien and we ended up with this golden alien skull design.

Back To The Wall

While finalizing the ice world, we really felt we could further polish the new player movements Adam started (see Devlog #3). We tweaked the wallslide, walljump, and shooting abilities. Inspired by games like Towerfall, Hollow Knight, Celeste, Ori, and Mario, we wanted to create a balance between fluid movement and player control. The result is a much more pleasant platforming experience. On top of that, we decided that 8 directional aiming would add a lot to the overall game feel and player control. This also required separating the player arm animations from the main body. While we were at it, we added a way to easily swap out different guns within those animations. Here is an example of the results:

A Whole New World

For the third world, we wanted something more mysterious and alien. Many things underwater often look quite alien already, especially when seeing it above water. So we decided to go for a mix between underwater, alien, and mushroomy inspired world. We’re still working on it, but here is a sneak peek of what we’ve got so far:

Totally OP

The next big thing on our list is to start adding weapon upgrades, abilities and challenge rooms. Right now, exploring branches in the world that do not lead to the boss room doesn’t feel very rewarding. Sure, you get some coins with which you can purchase back lost time at time exchange machines, but that’s about it. One of the main mechanics we have in mind is incremental weapon upgrades for firing rate, bullet speed, damage, etc. Players will also be able to acquire different guns and bullet types. The current idea is to place these upgrades near the end of branches away from the main path in each world, either behind a challenge room or make them purchasable with coins at an upgrade point. Below some concept sketches for portals to challenge rooms and upgrade pedestals.

The mechanics for generating new guns are in place. I couldn’t help myself from making an overpowered gun to test the new mechanics ;)

Alright, that’s it for this devlog. Thanks for tuning in and see you next time!

Nathan